WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.840 If I say, would you like this thing? 2 00:00:01.840 --> 00:00:03.760 And the other person says, yes, and they give me money, 3 00:00:03.760 --> 00:00:06.360 and I give them the thing, no harm was done. 4 00:00:06.360 --> 00:00:08.120 All right, so you have to get over this belief 5 00:00:08.120 --> 00:00:10.000 about like selling something or making an offer 6 00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:10.960 is somehow bad. 7 00:00:10.960 --> 00:00:12.920 You're literally preventing people from having 8 00:00:12.920 --> 00:00:14.640 a benefit by not making the offer. 9 00:00:15.840 --> 00:00:16.920 The wealthiest people in the world 10 00:00:16.920 --> 00:00:18.080 see business as a game. 11 00:00:18.080 --> 00:00:19.640 This podcast, the game is my attempt 12 00:00:19.640 --> 00:00:21.000 at documenting the lessons I've learned 13 00:00:21.000 --> 00:00:22.600 on my way to building acquisition.com 14 00:00:22.600 --> 00:00:24.160 into a billion dollar portfolio. 15 00:00:24.160 --> 00:00:25.960 My hope is that you use the lessons to grow your business 16 00:00:25.960 --> 00:00:27.360 and maybe someday soon partner with us 17 00:00:27.360 --> 00:00:28.800 to get $200 million in beyond. 18 00:00:28.880 --> 00:00:30.080 I hope you share and enjoy. 19 00:00:31.720 --> 00:00:36.720 I learned $7 million lessons at my first job. 20 00:00:36.920 --> 00:00:39.200 Imagine five generations of fathers 21 00:00:39.200 --> 00:00:41.760 teaching their sons the same exact tips 22 00:00:41.760 --> 00:00:45.520 and tricks of running one very successful business. 23 00:00:45.520 --> 00:00:48.560 Now, this was a multi million dollar per year operation. 24 00:00:48.560 --> 00:00:50.920 All right, and I worked in the off site, 25 00:00:50.920 --> 00:00:54.080 not the retail center in the storage unit, 26 00:00:54.080 --> 00:00:57.640 which is this massive warehouse of fur coats 27 00:00:57.640 --> 00:01:00.400 talking like 7,000 fur coats. 28 00:01:00.400 --> 00:01:02.120 And just for context, fur coats are usually 29 00:01:02.120 --> 00:01:05.320 between like 1,000 all the way up to $50,000. 30 00:01:05.320 --> 00:01:07.640 So when you think about walking into like a fur coat store, 31 00:01:07.640 --> 00:01:10.280 if you see 100 coats or 200 coats, 32 00:01:10.280 --> 00:01:13.720 it's like having 200 cars sitting in a parking lot 33 00:01:13.720 --> 00:01:15.280 that's the size of a living room. 34 00:01:15.280 --> 00:01:17.320 Lots of money exchanging hands. 35 00:01:17.320 --> 00:01:18.640 The first lesson you ever taught me 36 00:01:18.640 --> 00:01:21.080 was how to deal with angry customers. 37 00:01:21.080 --> 00:01:24.480 One day, I was going from the warehouse 38 00:01:24.480 --> 00:01:25.760 to the retail store. 39 00:01:25.760 --> 00:01:27.320 So I didn't go in the retail store that much 40 00:01:27.320 --> 00:01:29.200 because like I looked like an 18 year old 41 00:01:29.200 --> 00:01:31.960 and I wasn't going to be selling any $25,000 coats. 42 00:01:31.960 --> 00:01:34.160 And I was in the back because obviously 43 00:01:34.160 --> 00:01:35.520 customers shouldn't see me. 44 00:01:35.520 --> 00:01:39.960 And this lady comes in and she is piss angry, all right? 45 00:01:39.960 --> 00:01:42.360 And she's like, where's Johnny? 46 00:01:42.360 --> 00:01:43.640 It's because I'm going to change the names 47 00:01:43.640 --> 00:01:45.840 just because I don't want to mess anyone's stuff up. 48 00:01:45.840 --> 00:01:47.240 She's like, where's Johnny? 49 00:01:47.240 --> 00:01:50.040 He sold me this coat and this button came off. 50 00:01:50.040 --> 00:01:51.240 This is so ridiculous. 51 00:01:51.240 --> 00:01:53.040 I spent so much money on this coat. 52 00:01:53.840 --> 00:01:56.080 She's just making a scene, right? 53 00:01:56.080 --> 00:02:00.480 Now, John, the owner of the store, I'm sitting in the back 54 00:02:00.480 --> 00:02:02.000 and the customer is this way. 55 00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:04.160 I'm on the other side of the door so she can't see me 56 00:02:04.160 --> 00:02:06.200 and he's walking towards me to turn out 57 00:02:06.200 --> 00:02:07.560 to go deal with her. 58 00:02:07.560 --> 00:02:10.120 As he's walking towards me, I see him roll his eyes 59 00:02:10.120 --> 00:02:11.600 and then as he turns a corner, 60 00:02:11.600 --> 00:02:13.240 he goes right into character. 61 00:02:13.240 --> 00:02:16.360 And what I learned later is that he got in the angry boat. 62 00:02:16.360 --> 00:02:17.920 And I'll explain that in a second. 63 00:02:17.920 --> 00:02:19.480 And so as soon as he walked out, he was like, 64 00:02:19.480 --> 00:02:21.840 Mrs. Johnson, that is ridiculous. 65 00:02:21.880 --> 00:02:24.600 I cannot believe that you had a coat that had a button 66 00:02:24.600 --> 00:02:25.440 that was missing. 67 00:02:25.440 --> 00:02:26.960 Who sold you that coat? 68 00:02:26.960 --> 00:02:28.720 Tell me the name of the sales rep. 69 00:02:28.720 --> 00:02:29.840 I need to find them right now. 70 00:02:29.840 --> 00:02:30.680 We'll get rid of them. 71 00:02:30.680 --> 00:02:33.720 Did anyone see you with the coat without the button? 72 00:02:33.720 --> 00:02:35.960 We're going to get to the bottom of this right now. 73 00:02:35.960 --> 00:02:38.160 All of a sudden, her whole tone changes. 74 00:02:38.160 --> 00:02:39.480 She started back pedaling and she's like, 75 00:02:39.480 --> 00:02:41.800 I mean, it wasn't that big of a deal. 76 00:02:41.800 --> 00:02:43.040 It was just a button. 77 00:02:43.040 --> 00:02:45.400 It probably, no, we need to get to the bottom of this 78 00:02:45.400 --> 00:02:46.680 and he leaned in even further. 79 00:02:46.680 --> 00:02:49.040 He's like, this is not acceptable. 80 00:02:49.040 --> 00:02:51.400 You should never have been seen in a coat 81 00:02:51.440 --> 00:02:52.840 that didn't have a button on it. 82 00:02:52.840 --> 00:02:55.160 And she, all of a sudden, became a columnist. 83 00:02:55.160 --> 00:02:56.360 And she's like, you know what? 84 00:02:56.360 --> 00:02:57.880 I just want it to be fixed. 85 00:02:57.880 --> 00:03:00.240 If you could fix the coat, he grabbed it from me. 86 00:03:00.240 --> 00:03:02.120 He's like, we're going to handle this right now. 87 00:03:02.120 --> 00:03:03.920 You don't even need to, you wait two seconds. 88 00:03:03.920 --> 00:03:05.720 We're going to fix this right now. 89 00:03:05.720 --> 00:03:08.400 He goes the back, they fix the thing in five minutes 90 00:03:08.400 --> 00:03:09.840 and he hands it back to him. 91 00:03:09.840 --> 00:03:12.000 And she's like, ah, John, you're always the best. 92 00:03:12.000 --> 00:03:13.320 Thank you so much for dealing with this. 93 00:03:13.320 --> 00:03:15.720 I'm sorry, I was a little bit over the top. 94 00:03:15.720 --> 00:03:17.440 I just, you know, I've spent so much in the jacket 95 00:03:17.440 --> 00:03:19.280 and he's like, as you should be. 96 00:03:19.280 --> 00:03:20.720 If you walked out the door, a turn of minute 97 00:03:20.720 --> 00:03:24.240 was like, there could only be one person in the angry boat. 98 00:03:24.240 --> 00:03:26.480 He said, so whenever someone comes in the angry boat, 99 00:03:26.480 --> 00:03:30.280 what most people try and do is they try and downplay them. 100 00:03:30.280 --> 00:03:32.360 And so they say, well, it's not that big of a deal. 101 00:03:32.360 --> 00:03:34.280 You know, it was just probably on his mistake. 102 00:03:34.280 --> 00:03:35.440 Well, just try, and what happens is 103 00:03:35.440 --> 00:03:37.520 the person doesn't feel validated. 104 00:03:37.520 --> 00:03:39.440 And so the person who's upset, 105 00:03:39.440 --> 00:03:41.320 then increases how angry they are 106 00:03:41.320 --> 00:03:43.880 because they want the person to validate why they're angry. 107 00:03:43.880 --> 00:03:45.640 And so what happens is they just keep getting angry 108 00:03:45.640 --> 00:03:47.280 and this person keeps trying to make them less angry. 109 00:03:47.280 --> 00:03:49.440 And then it just creates more and more of a discrepancy 110 00:03:49.440 --> 00:03:50.720 between the two people. 111 00:03:50.720 --> 00:03:53.040 Now, the flip side is she got in the angry boat. 112 00:03:53.040 --> 00:03:55.280 And so she had to get out of the angry boat. 113 00:03:55.280 --> 00:03:57.120 And so whenever you're dealing with an upset customer, 114 00:03:57.120 --> 00:03:58.280 and this is what you needed to like, 115 00:03:58.280 --> 00:04:00.120 this is something that I recommend teaching customer service 116 00:04:00.120 --> 00:04:01.160 traps or account reps, 117 00:04:01.160 --> 00:04:02.400 or if you're just the small business owner, 118 00:04:02.400 --> 00:04:05.000 you're dealing with people, you need to validate their anger. 119 00:04:05.000 --> 00:04:07.960 And in a real way, if something was messed up 120 00:04:07.960 --> 00:04:09.760 and you have very high standards for your business, 121 00:04:09.760 --> 00:04:11.280 the moment you say it's not a big deal, 122 00:04:11.280 --> 00:04:13.520 I mean, you're not actually taking responsibility. 123 00:04:13.520 --> 00:04:16.160 And so even if their complaint is ridiculous, 124 00:04:16.160 --> 00:04:19.240 and it's something that would be no way under control, 125 00:04:19.240 --> 00:04:21.720 it still is your responsibility. 126 00:04:21.720 --> 00:04:23.400 And so you have to take ownership of it 127 00:04:23.400 --> 00:04:25.640 because the alternative is you don't, 128 00:04:25.640 --> 00:04:26.840 and you never get better. 129 00:04:26.840 --> 00:04:29.760 And so you lean even more in that in those scenarios. 130 00:04:29.760 --> 00:04:31.800 And that was the first lesson he taught me, 131 00:04:31.800 --> 00:04:33.480 which was the angry boat. 132 00:04:33.480 --> 00:04:37.880 The second lesson he taught me was about creating a new product. 133 00:04:37.880 --> 00:04:39.800 So one of the things that had happened 134 00:04:39.800 --> 00:04:42.960 in the five generations of fur coat fathers 135 00:04:42.960 --> 00:04:46.120 passing under fur coat suds was that they realized 136 00:04:46.160 --> 00:04:49.160 that in the summer, they never had any demand 137 00:04:49.160 --> 00:04:51.480 because people aren't trying to buy fur coats in the summer. 138 00:04:51.480 --> 00:04:54.320 And they're like, huh, what can we sell to people 139 00:04:54.320 --> 00:04:57.800 that still on brand for fur coats during the summer? 140 00:04:57.800 --> 00:04:59.680 And so it came up with a genius idea. 141 00:04:59.680 --> 00:05:02.760 They said, we'll store and condition the coats for them. 142 00:05:02.760 --> 00:05:04.160 Mind you, that's where I worked 143 00:05:04.160 --> 00:05:06.680 in the warehouse where we stored and condition the coats. 144 00:05:06.680 --> 00:05:09.880 And so what happened is as they sold every single customer coat, 145 00:05:09.880 --> 00:05:12.520 they said, hey, every year, make sure during the summer 146 00:05:12.520 --> 00:05:14.560 when you're not using the coat, you bring it back here, 147 00:05:14.560 --> 00:05:16.880 we can repair any damages, we can sew things up, 148 00:05:16.880 --> 00:05:18.480 we can condition the fur and we can make it 149 00:05:18.480 --> 00:05:20.520 last two, three, five times longer. 150 00:05:20.520 --> 00:05:22.800 So you can pass it on to the next of kin. 151 00:05:22.800 --> 00:05:24.200 And then he would give this a little analogy. 152 00:05:24.200 --> 00:05:26.840 He's like, right, if you're gonna buy a $50,000 car, 153 00:05:26.840 --> 00:05:28.840 you'd pay a hundred bucks a month for insurance 154 00:05:28.840 --> 00:05:30.320 to ensure the car, of course, right? 155 00:05:30.320 --> 00:05:31.840 It's the same thing here. 156 00:05:31.840 --> 00:05:34.760 So he created this analogy that compared for coats, 157 00:05:34.760 --> 00:05:36.680 which people didn't understand as well to a car, 158 00:05:36.680 --> 00:05:38.040 which was something they did. 159 00:05:38.040 --> 00:05:39.680 And so what happened is overnight, 160 00:05:39.680 --> 00:05:42.520 he created what I would consider an insurance product. 161 00:05:42.520 --> 00:05:45.600 Now, insurance products don't actually have to be insurance. 162 00:05:45.600 --> 00:05:48.280 If you do anything, guaranteeing your work 163 00:05:48.280 --> 00:05:50.560 either through labor or just decreasing the risk 164 00:05:50.560 --> 00:05:54.600 that it happens, you can charge people for the safety 165 00:05:54.600 --> 00:05:56.480 that whatever they just bought will continue 166 00:05:56.480 --> 00:05:59.200 to provide value for a longer period of time. 167 00:05:59.200 --> 00:06:02.960 And so he was able to do this and here's what's crazy. 168 00:06:02.960 --> 00:06:06.120 The cost to store a coat I think was like $200, right? 169 00:06:06.120 --> 00:06:07.200 For the whole summer. 170 00:06:07.200 --> 00:06:10.840 Now, think about the cost of goods on storing a coat. 171 00:06:10.840 --> 00:06:14.400 You grab the coat, you hang it on a rack inside of a van, 172 00:06:14.400 --> 00:06:17.000 you drive it to a warehouse that's air conditioned, 173 00:06:17.000 --> 00:06:18.640 and then you hang the coat. 174 00:06:18.640 --> 00:06:21.120 That's the storage, that's the fee. 175 00:06:21.120 --> 00:06:23.240 His two biggest cost was just ensuring the warehouse 176 00:06:23.240 --> 00:06:25.360 that had millions and millions of dollars 177 00:06:25.360 --> 00:06:28.600 of fur coats in it and the AC bill. 178 00:06:28.600 --> 00:06:29.440 That's it. 179 00:06:29.440 --> 00:06:33.120 And the upsell was the next lesson I'm gonna tell you. 180 00:06:33.120 --> 00:06:35.440 Lesson three, was getting people to say yes 181 00:06:35.440 --> 00:06:36.840 by saying no. 182 00:06:36.840 --> 00:06:39.840 So when I first learned no base selling, 183 00:06:39.840 --> 00:06:42.120 I actually learned it from this job when I was 18, 184 00:06:42.120 --> 00:06:45.640 which as an aside, if you want to get into business, 185 00:06:45.640 --> 00:06:48.760 it's so much more valuable to learn from somebody who's very good 186 00:06:48.760 --> 00:06:50.080 than try and learn it all on your own, 187 00:06:50.080 --> 00:06:51.720 which is why I think most people in their younger need 188 00:06:51.720 --> 00:06:53.720 just prioritize learning rather than earning. 189 00:06:53.720 --> 00:06:55.920 Everyone's in such a race to get to become a millionaire 190 00:06:55.920 --> 00:06:57.640 when you can guarantee that you're a millionaire 191 00:06:57.640 --> 00:06:59.920 in a decade if you do the right things early. 192 00:07:00.880 --> 00:07:02.280 Back to the lesson. 193 00:07:02.280 --> 00:07:03.760 So one of the things that he did to increase 194 00:07:03.760 --> 00:07:06.680 the average cart value of storing the fur coats 195 00:07:06.680 --> 00:07:08.920 was get people to say yes to conditioning the coat, right? 196 00:07:08.920 --> 00:07:10.760 Because storage is the first core thing, 197 00:07:10.760 --> 00:07:13.200 which is I just hang your coat up and I keep it air condition. 198 00:07:13.200 --> 00:07:16.280 And the upsell is I'll also brush it and I'll fix it 199 00:07:16.280 --> 00:07:17.520 and I'll do these other things. 200 00:07:17.520 --> 00:07:19.760 And so when they would call up customers 201 00:07:19.760 --> 00:07:21.120 and they'd say, hey, do you wanna, you know, 202 00:07:21.120 --> 00:07:22.840 turn in your coat for the summer, 203 00:07:22.840 --> 00:07:25.320 what they did was say, hey, we're gonna store 204 00:07:25.320 --> 00:07:26.200 in condition the coat. 205 00:07:26.200 --> 00:07:28.480 You don't want anything else, do you? 206 00:07:28.480 --> 00:07:30.800 And they would say no, no, no, I don't want anything else. 207 00:07:30.800 --> 00:07:34.120 And so implied in that, they got them to say yes to storage 208 00:07:34.120 --> 00:07:37.160 and yes to conditioning the coat, pretty slick. 209 00:07:37.160 --> 00:07:40.280 Now, to make sure that people actually turned in the coat, 210 00:07:40.280 --> 00:07:41.560 they added something else, 211 00:07:41.560 --> 00:07:43.960 which is an incentive to get people to respond. 212 00:07:46.200 --> 00:07:48.520 Big guys, love that you're listening to the podcast. 213 00:07:48.520 --> 00:07:51.360 If you ever want to have the video version of this, 214 00:07:51.360 --> 00:07:53.920 which usually has more facts, more visuals, more graphs, 215 00:07:53.920 --> 00:07:56.960 you know, drawn out stuff, sometimes it can help hit 216 00:07:56.960 --> 00:07:58.440 the brain centers in different ways. 217 00:07:58.440 --> 00:08:00.680 You can check out my YouTube channel, it's absolutely free. 218 00:08:00.680 --> 00:08:02.280 You can check that out if that's what you are into. 219 00:08:02.280 --> 00:08:04.080 And if not, keep enjoying the show. 220 00:08:04.920 --> 00:08:08.920 So lesson four, when they wanted to get people to actually 221 00:08:08.920 --> 00:08:11.640 take them up on the upsell that they had, 222 00:08:11.640 --> 00:08:13.600 they gave them a little piece of bait, 223 00:08:13.600 --> 00:08:15.840 but the lesson was what the bait was. 224 00:08:15.840 --> 00:08:17.840 And it was what I call sawdust. 225 00:08:17.840 --> 00:08:21.640 And so sawdust is anything in a business that is excess, 226 00:08:21.640 --> 00:08:24.040 that is created in excess that you normally throw out. 227 00:08:24.040 --> 00:08:26.880 So a lot of famous things were actually made out of sawdust. 228 00:08:26.880 --> 00:08:29.400 So if you've ever seen those Ikea pieces of furniture, 229 00:08:29.400 --> 00:08:31.960 they just glued together all the sawdust from lumber mills 230 00:08:31.960 --> 00:08:34.240 because it was literally thrown aside. 231 00:08:34.240 --> 00:08:37.400 And so it became actually a harder, stronger piece of wood 232 00:08:37.400 --> 00:08:39.440 by taking the excess capacity. 233 00:08:39.440 --> 00:08:42.360 To the same degree, if you've ever heard of way protein, 234 00:08:42.360 --> 00:08:46.480 way protein used to get scraped off the bottom of dairy centers 235 00:08:46.480 --> 00:08:47.960 because it was waste product. 236 00:08:47.960 --> 00:08:51.800 And now it's one of the most expensive products sold from dairy. 237 00:08:51.800 --> 00:08:54.640 And so what he did was he took the scraps 238 00:08:54.640 --> 00:08:56.680 from all the coats that they would make in the back 239 00:08:56.680 --> 00:08:58.200 and all the repairs that they had, 240 00:08:58.200 --> 00:09:01.000 and they would all have all these odd shaped pieces of fur. 241 00:09:01.080 --> 00:09:03.680 And so what they did was they made tiny little things 242 00:09:03.680 --> 00:09:04.480 that were made of fur. 243 00:09:04.480 --> 00:09:07.160 So I think like little purses, little earmuffs, 244 00:09:07.160 --> 00:09:09.720 wristlets, whatever, tiny little strings of fur, 245 00:09:09.720 --> 00:09:13.160 but still had the value of expensive clothing 246 00:09:13.160 --> 00:09:14.600 of luxury products. 247 00:09:14.600 --> 00:09:17.480 And so they said anybody who would turn in their coat 248 00:09:17.480 --> 00:09:19.200 would get this as a bonus. 249 00:09:19.200 --> 00:09:20.200 Pretty cool, right? 250 00:09:20.200 --> 00:09:21.800 And so what they did was they gave away something 251 00:09:21.800 --> 00:09:24.720 that cost them nothing that people still perceive value 252 00:09:24.720 --> 00:09:26.720 as bait to get people to come in 253 00:09:26.720 --> 00:09:28.480 and actually take the upsell. 254 00:09:28.480 --> 00:09:31.280 What's even more is that when people did come 255 00:09:31.280 --> 00:09:33.520 to turn the thing in, they would actually say, 256 00:09:33.520 --> 00:09:36.160 well, you want to store that too, right? 257 00:09:36.160 --> 00:09:37.480 And they would say yes. 258 00:09:37.480 --> 00:09:39.400 And then they would charge them for that. 259 00:09:39.400 --> 00:09:40.880 Even though they got the product for free, 260 00:09:40.880 --> 00:09:42.240 the storage didn't come free. 261 00:09:42.240 --> 00:09:44.600 And so all these little things that were accumulated 262 00:09:44.600 --> 00:09:46.320 over five generations of fur years. 263 00:09:46.320 --> 00:09:47.240 And if people were listening to this, 264 00:09:47.240 --> 00:09:49.240 if you're listening to this and you're a consumer, 265 00:09:49.240 --> 00:09:51.240 you have to get around the like, 266 00:09:51.240 --> 00:09:53.600 someone selling me something makes them evil. 267 00:09:53.600 --> 00:09:55.440 Capitalism is the only system 268 00:09:55.440 --> 00:09:58.240 where both people say thank you after an exchange. 269 00:09:58.240 --> 00:09:59.880 It means both parties are better. 270 00:09:59.880 --> 00:10:02.640 And the big part of capitalism has to be voluntary exchange. 271 00:10:02.640 --> 00:10:04.280 Now, if there's coercion, right? 272 00:10:04.280 --> 00:10:06.160 If someone threatens you, that's different. 273 00:10:06.160 --> 00:10:08.840 That's not, that's just a form of robbery, right? 274 00:10:08.840 --> 00:10:10.760 But if I say, would you like this thing? 275 00:10:10.760 --> 00:10:12.680 And the other person says yes, and they give me money, 276 00:10:12.680 --> 00:10:15.400 and I give them the thing, no harm was done. 277 00:10:15.400 --> 00:10:17.160 All right, so you have to get over this belief 278 00:10:17.160 --> 00:10:19.040 about like selling something or making an offer 279 00:10:19.040 --> 00:10:20.040 is somehow bad. 280 00:10:20.040 --> 00:10:21.760 You're literally preventing people 281 00:10:21.760 --> 00:10:23.840 from having a benefit by not making the offer. 282 00:10:23.840 --> 00:10:25.560 If someone didn't want to store the earmuffs 283 00:10:25.560 --> 00:10:28.000 or the wrist links, then they didn't have to. 284 00:10:28.000 --> 00:10:30.000 And they just got it for free, which is a benefit. 285 00:10:30.000 --> 00:10:31.720 And for the business, just a cost of doing business 286 00:10:31.720 --> 00:10:33.640 to get the person in the door. 287 00:10:33.640 --> 00:10:35.440 And this leads me to my fifth lesson. 288 00:10:35.440 --> 00:10:39.080 This fur coat dealer was able to withstand 289 00:10:39.080 --> 00:10:41.760 all of the pita pressures and all of the, you know, 290 00:10:41.760 --> 00:10:43.240 people being upset about animals, 291 00:10:43.240 --> 00:10:44.960 even though they, you know, wear leather 292 00:10:44.960 --> 00:10:47.080 and they eat meat every day, right? 293 00:10:47.080 --> 00:10:48.680 And they're all up in arms about stuff. 294 00:10:48.680 --> 00:10:50.680 He was able to weather that for five generations 295 00:10:50.680 --> 00:10:53.800 because he never stopped doing the boring work. 296 00:10:53.800 --> 00:10:57.280 What they do has not changed fundamentally in years. 297 00:10:57.280 --> 00:11:00.840 All they did was get better and better and better at it. 298 00:11:00.840 --> 00:11:02.480 And one of the things that I found 299 00:11:02.480 --> 00:11:04.120 through all the portfolio companies that we work with 300 00:11:04.120 --> 00:11:05.800 at acquisition.com, and if you don't know who I am, 301 00:11:05.800 --> 00:11:06.640 by the way, by the way, 302 00:11:06.640 --> 00:11:08.120 where you own acquisition.com to portfolio 303 00:11:08.120 --> 00:11:09.240 is $200 million a year. 304 00:11:09.240 --> 00:11:11.160 And I make these because I want you to use the stuff, 305 00:11:11.160 --> 00:11:12.680 make lots of money, and then eventually, 306 00:11:12.680 --> 00:11:13.640 we can invest in your business 307 00:11:13.640 --> 00:11:15.200 once you crack, you know, three, five, 10 million 308 00:11:15.200 --> 00:11:16.840 plus per year, all right? 309 00:11:16.840 --> 00:11:20.040 But the difference between the small business owners 310 00:11:20.040 --> 00:11:22.360 and the big business owners is that the big business owners 311 00:11:22.360 --> 00:11:24.560 do the same thing for a very long period of time. 312 00:11:24.560 --> 00:11:26.600 And they do all the things that right now 313 00:11:26.600 --> 00:11:28.040 you probably know you should be doing 314 00:11:28.040 --> 00:11:30.560 but aren't in your business, they just do those. 315 00:11:30.560 --> 00:11:32.120 So there's nothing advanced about it. 316 00:11:32.120 --> 00:11:34.840 They just do all the basics every time every day. 317 00:11:34.840 --> 00:11:35.680 And if you're like, man, 318 00:11:35.680 --> 00:11:37.160 but it's gonna take me time to set up a blog 319 00:11:37.160 --> 00:11:39.320 and take me time to do email follow-up consistently. 320 00:11:39.320 --> 00:11:40.840 It's gonna take me time to create content. 321 00:11:40.840 --> 00:11:42.640 It's gonna take me time to build a sales team. 322 00:11:42.640 --> 00:11:43.480 Yeah, there's all the things 323 00:11:43.480 --> 00:11:44.600 that you probably know you should do. 324 00:11:44.600 --> 00:11:46.840 And they take time, which is why building a business 325 00:11:46.840 --> 00:11:48.800 that's big takes big time. 326 00:11:48.800 --> 00:11:51.280 But it also creates even bigger outcomes. 327 00:11:52.320 --> 00:11:54.640 The sixth lesson I learned was how he was able 328 00:11:54.640 --> 00:11:57.360 to double the amount of codes people would buy. 329 00:11:57.360 --> 00:12:00.160 So a few times per year he would run these seasonal 330 00:12:00.160 --> 00:12:02.440 like unclaimed for sales. 331 00:12:02.440 --> 00:12:03.880 And so people would come in 332 00:12:03.880 --> 00:12:06.720 and he had two big caveats that I thought were brilliant. 333 00:12:06.720 --> 00:12:09.360 The first, we said no dealers. 334 00:12:09.360 --> 00:12:11.360 And so what that meant is everyone who's a consumer 335 00:12:11.360 --> 00:12:13.240 thinks, oh, these must be great deals. 336 00:12:13.240 --> 00:12:15.200 That's why dealers aren't allowed, right? 337 00:12:15.200 --> 00:12:17.240 So it's almost like a damaging admission 338 00:12:17.240 --> 00:12:18.880 but he does it in a way to persuade people 339 00:12:18.880 --> 00:12:20.360 that they're getting an even better deal. 340 00:12:20.360 --> 00:12:23.000 Now, once they got in, there was a sign on the door 341 00:12:23.000 --> 00:12:25.280 that said limit to codes per customer. 342 00:12:25.280 --> 00:12:27.800 And so what happens is when you limit the codes per customer, 343 00:12:27.800 --> 00:12:29.640 then it means every single person buys more than one 344 00:12:29.640 --> 00:12:30.720 because they're like, oh, there's a limit. 345 00:12:30.720 --> 00:12:32.640 I have to use up the scarce resource. 346 00:12:32.640 --> 00:12:34.320 So he made purchasing a code 347 00:12:34.320 --> 00:12:36.440 a scarce resource in and of itself. 348 00:12:36.440 --> 00:12:39.000 On top of that, in the actual store itself, 349 00:12:39.000 --> 00:12:41.560 they would have multiple strike downs on the price 350 00:12:41.560 --> 00:12:43.840 and it would say final price, all sales are final. 351 00:12:43.840 --> 00:12:46.240 And so it created all of this scarcity 352 00:12:46.240 --> 00:12:49.120 and he purposely let people in on a single file line 353 00:12:49.120 --> 00:12:51.720 and a fixed amount of people in the store at the same time. 354 00:12:51.720 --> 00:12:53.360 Part of that is for security to make sure 355 00:12:53.360 --> 00:12:55.360 that people don't steal codes, obviously. 356 00:12:55.360 --> 00:12:57.520 But the other side of it was that it created 357 00:12:57.520 --> 00:12:59.840 this huge perception of demand. 358 00:12:59.840 --> 00:13:01.200 So you have a line out the door. 359 00:13:01.200 --> 00:13:04.160 It says limit to per customer, no dealers allowed. 360 00:13:04.160 --> 00:13:06.760 You walk in the door, they're security everywhere 361 00:13:06.760 --> 00:13:09.040 and you feel like you gotta go get yours. 362 00:13:09.040 --> 00:13:11.040 And so what happens is every single person bought 363 00:13:11.040 --> 00:13:13.320 more codes than they ultimately would have otherwise. 364 00:13:13.320 --> 00:13:14.680 And so when you have the opportunity, 365 00:13:14.680 --> 00:13:16.080 and I've learned this in multiple businesses 366 00:13:16.080 --> 00:13:18.400 and I've applied this, is that whenever you run a promotion 367 00:13:18.400 --> 00:13:20.440 if you're going to, having a limit 368 00:13:20.440 --> 00:13:22.480 to the amount that people can buy, 369 00:13:22.480 --> 00:13:24.640 oftentimes actually makes you more money. 370 00:13:24.640 --> 00:13:27.320 Because the fear is, what if someone is going to buy 10 codes? 371 00:13:27.320 --> 00:13:30.200 But the reality is very few people were going to buy 10 codes. 372 00:13:30.200 --> 00:13:32.560 But what it did do is it got the 80% of people 373 00:13:32.560 --> 00:13:34.920 that were going to buy one to buy two. 374 00:13:34.920 --> 00:13:38.440 The seventh lesson I learned was that by creating 375 00:13:38.440 --> 00:13:41.280 this continuity product where people would come every year 376 00:13:41.280 --> 00:13:43.800 to get their fur coat insured and fixed 377 00:13:43.800 --> 00:13:45.680 is that you become top of mind. 378 00:13:45.680 --> 00:13:48.280 You go from being a store that someone bought something once 379 00:13:48.280 --> 00:13:50.680 to being the first place someone goes 380 00:13:50.680 --> 00:13:53.280 when they saw anything related to this specific problem 381 00:13:53.280 --> 00:13:54.920 in this case, fur coats. 382 00:13:54.920 --> 00:13:57.360 And so you become the dealer for life. 383 00:13:57.360 --> 00:13:59.400 And so what happens is instead of them price shopping 384 00:13:59.400 --> 00:14:02.480 you are going all over town, what they'll do instead 385 00:14:02.480 --> 00:14:04.840 is they go to you first and every three years 386 00:14:04.840 --> 00:14:07.360 or every five years because the buying cycle on fur coats 387 00:14:07.360 --> 00:14:09.120 is the same almost as cars. 388 00:14:09.120 --> 00:14:10.960 All of a sudden, instead of being that one salesman 389 00:14:10.960 --> 00:14:12.320 who sells one car one time, 390 00:14:12.320 --> 00:14:14.680 you become the car salesman for the rest of your life 391 00:14:14.680 --> 00:14:17.560 because of what you do between the sales. 392 00:14:17.560 --> 00:14:20.320 So in your business, if you have a one time product, 393 00:14:20.320 --> 00:14:22.680 especially that's a little bit bigger in purchase, 394 00:14:22.680 --> 00:14:24.440 having little things that you can do, 395 00:14:24.440 --> 00:14:26.400 even if you didn't make money on them, 396 00:14:26.400 --> 00:14:28.200 but you just broke even on them 397 00:14:28.200 --> 00:14:30.000 and then you know that on average 398 00:14:30.000 --> 00:14:32.520 you get customers to buy two more products from you, 399 00:14:32.520 --> 00:14:34.000 it more than makes up for the effort 400 00:14:34.000 --> 00:14:35.880 and cost of time that you put into it. 401 00:14:35.880 --> 00:14:38.960 And the beautiful thing about this is that no one's gonna do it. 402 00:14:38.960 --> 00:14:40.440 And the reason is because everyone's lazy. 403 00:14:40.440 --> 00:14:42.080 And so you're like, Alex, I can't believe 404 00:14:42.080 --> 00:14:44.360 you're telling these secrets, no one's gonna do it. 405 00:14:44.360 --> 00:14:46.400 Because if you did do it, you'd already be a multi-millionaire. 406 00:14:46.440 --> 00:14:48.600 And so like, if you just do these things, 407 00:14:48.600 --> 00:14:51.520 like this guy did, you will make significantly more. 408 00:14:51.520 --> 00:14:52.840 So do it. 409 00:14:52.840 --> 00:14:55.000 And the cost of deliver on this was so low 410 00:14:55.000 --> 00:14:57.400 because we had one, 18 year olds, 411 00:14:57.400 --> 00:15:00.880 two, air conditioning, three storage facility. 412 00:15:00.880 --> 00:15:01.560 That was it. 413 00:15:02.600 --> 00:15:04.760 I think the reason nobody's selling is more effective 414 00:15:04.760 --> 00:15:05.760 or often more effective, 415 00:15:05.760 --> 00:15:07.280 especially in upsell situations 416 00:15:07.280 --> 00:15:10.080 is that people wanna just get the default option. 417 00:15:10.080 --> 00:15:14.080 And so we're so trained to say no to any kind of upsells 418 00:15:14.080 --> 00:15:15.720 that if you get someone to say no, 419 00:15:15.720 --> 00:15:17.480 but in so doing, get them to say yes, 420 00:15:17.480 --> 00:15:22.040 you actually click into their subconscious automated response, right? 421 00:15:22.040 --> 00:15:24.160 And so people feel safe saying no 422 00:15:24.160 --> 00:15:25.960 because most times when they say no to salesmen, 423 00:15:25.960 --> 00:15:26.960 they save money. 424 00:15:26.960 --> 00:15:29.280 And so what you do is you flip the script and you align it 425 00:15:29.280 --> 00:15:31.520 so that them saying no actually gets them to say yes 426 00:15:31.520 --> 00:15:33.120 for you and to the purchase.